


Mud

by savagevictory



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), Nice Negan (Walking Dead), Poetry, Prose Poem, Sweet Negan (Walking Dead), sad negan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27793003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savagevictory/pseuds/savagevictory
Summary: I won’t say a word about anything I saw, but he doesn’t know I move best in silence.
Relationships: Negan (Walking Dead)/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	Mud

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prose poem, but please let me know if you'd like to see an entire fanfic covering these characters! I have big plans for them, so please leave a review. Thank you and enjoy!

_**Mud** _

He is on his knees, a position he’s made men (and women) hold, but never himself. His jeans sink into the mud, and but mud is not the worst thing his pants have sustained. If I could ring them out, rusted blood would ooze from the fabric. His wife is in the open grave before him — or the bat that was named after her is — her barbed wire jagged and her wood splintered with the bullet still stuck in the grain. His last connection to his past before karma came, gone. He wielded the bat around like she was gold. He polished her like I would polish a guitar, but he did it with a pain in his eyes that doesn’t compare to the one he has now. He never talks about his wife, the real Lucille. He told me though. He caught me late in the library one night, cataloging books long after the staff left, and when I should’ve been in my room as well. While cataloging, I found a short story collection I read in my undergrad, Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson, and immediately flipped to the piece about a woman haunting her family after she loses her battle with cancer. I was reading it when Lucille tapped on the “circulation desk”, promptly scaring the crap out of me. He smirked at me, his usual flirty self, but I was secretly terrified that because he knew I was alone, and he found out my true reason for being there in his fortress. We’ve become “work friends” if that’s even possible, at this point. I’ve tried to see if he’s playing his own game, but I knew he believed the truth, the truth I wanted him to know. He only asked why I was still up, and I answered I couldn’t sleep, so I worked instead. I missed being around books, so staying in the library was like I was protected by the thousands of worlds lining the shelves. He didn’t press, just asked about the book. I told him, and when he heard the word, his face hardened. I changed the subject without a beat, saying that there are other stories, like the man who hunted pedophiles while having his own crisis, hoping the moral ambiguity distracted him enough, but he wished me a curt “good night” and left, swinging Lucille over his shoulder. Weeks later, on the rooftop after a supply run and a few whiskey shots (for him, not me), he told me he read the story the night after we talked. He said that he was worse than the husband. The cancer was in her pancreas, caught too late, as it usually goes, but that didn’t stop him from having one last affair with a coworker. She left when his grief began to show. He didn’t think of her once when she slammed the door. Lucille knew of every girl, every midnight escape, and what everyone whispered when they were in public together or apart. She still loved him, he said, so he stopped. He dedicated his last few months with her to her, trading hotel rooms for nights on the bathroom floor with her and pricey dinners with his “girls” for homemade soup with cancer-fighting ingredients. She died earlier than expected. Her hair gone but she never looked more gorgeous, even with all the wires attached and her closed eyes sunk in, her skin purple. He’s rarely cried but did when he realized that she couldn’t hear him apologize for everything he put her through and regretting all the collective years he spent with others. It didn’t matter — the apocalypse happened when her heart stopped. He didn’t tell me what happened after he heard the doctors and patients scream outside the hospital room, just that he knew it was over when she opened her glazed eyes. He stopped talking, even turning his head away before downing another shot.

“I’m sorry.”

All of the things he does— the blood, the tricks, the hurt, everything — is just an extension of the ache that he can’t soothe. He deserves every awful thing that happens to him, but at least there’s a bit of regret. I don’t know where he got the bat, but it was sometime between death and when he formed The Sanctuary. He wrapped her in barbed wire to protect and defend both herself and him. He named her in honor of the one person he can’t save, and she transcended death and won time and time again. She beat her battle, but now he’s holding a funeral for her second passing. Negan doesn’t hear Dwight command the group to continue back to the Sanctuary over the pouring rain and his explicit laced apologies. I don’t interrupt him as he unravels in the mud. I stay in the truck as told, watching and waiting for him with the windows down so I could hear him break down. He’s still a person, bound to break in this dead world, but I forget that sometimes. That’s why I’ve spent with him, trying to find this exact moment. I don’t want to be here with Negan. I don’t want to watch him mourn for his dead wife and blistered bat. But I have to. He looks to the sky one last time, rises to his feet, grabs the shovel Simon left him, and begins filling the grave with sludge. He fills it to the brim and walks his way to the truck through the grass with muddy jeans. On any other day, I’d tell him to put a towel down or better yet change pants, and he’d make some dirty remark, but I don’t say anything when he climbs into the cab and looks straight ahead. He tells me to drive, so I do. I clutch the steering wheel and plan my next steps as we coast in silence. When we arrive at the Sanctuary’s garage, he snaps out of his trance, hopping out of the cab before I could break and shouts orders to the workers. I park and stare straight forward, wondering how I’m going to execute my plan after everything when Negan opens the door and sits back in his seat. He tells me that he would appreciate it if I don’t mention his “breakdown” to anyone, not even Dwight or Simon — he’d lose their respect and he doesn’t exactly want Simon to be the new leader if everyone votes him out. He gives me his familiar smirk, but it doesn’t meet his eyes. I nod and agree — I don’t want Simon to be leader either. He nods and tells me to come back inside when I’m ready, then he swaggers back inside like nothing ever happened. I won’t say a word about anything I saw, but he doesn’t know I move best in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if you'd like an entire fanfic of this story! There's so much I want to do with these characters, so please review and give kudos! Thank you for reading.


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